Background The rennin angiotensin system plays an important role in the increased risk of hypertension as may occur in patients with sleep disordered breathing. Several polymorphisms of genes of the rennin angiotensin system have been associated with an increased cardiovascular diseases and strokes. However, only limited data exist on possible association between sleep disordered breathing and polymorphism of these genes. Therefore, the purpose of our study was to estimate whether polymorphism of ACE (insertion/deletion) and AGT (M235T) are associated or not with the increased risk of hypertension in subjects with sleep disordered breathing in the general population. Methods This study was conducted with a 2-stage probability sampling procedure in the general population. 615 subjects, aged 40-69 years, were submitted to an overnight polysomnography and examined on genetic polymorphism, sleep habits, body habitus, biochemical data, and measurement of blood pressure. Results SDB and gene polymorphism of angiontensin converting enzyme interacted significantly to modulate blood pressure independently of age, sex, body mass index, antihypertensive medication, and diabetes although AGT polymorphism was not significant. Interestingly, the association of the deletion allele for ACE with hypertension was most pronounced in subjects with mild to moderate degrees of sleep apnea (5